Forty days. Six hundred and seventy-six points. Six cities. Ten games. Zero losses.
Those are just some of the numbers behind the Boston University women’s basketball team’s recent win streak, which came to a sudden end Wednesday night with a 77-68 loss at the hands of the University at Albany.
In fact, the last time BU lost, most of the country was getting ready to watch the New Year’s ball drop in Times Square, the Northeast had been through just one snowstorm and the spring semester was a distant thought in the minds of students enjoying the winter break.
But now that is all over, as the Terriers (13-10, 10-1 America East) lose not only the win streak, but also their perfect conference record. BU does still hold its first-place AE position—just one game ahead of Binghamton University — while Albany (13-11, 6-5 AE) stays in fifth place.
“None of us are going to go home and cry,” said BU coach Kelly Greenberg. “We’re a very good basketball team, and I think we’re a championship-caliber basketball team.”
The game was arguably the most closely contested matchup of the season for the Terriers, who had all five of their starters score in double-digit. Sophomore guards Mo Moran and Chantell Alford scored 15 and 13 points, respectively, while junior guard Alex Young had 14 and senior center Kerry Cashman and junior forward Caroline Stewart each added 10.
To add to the close score, the contest featured 15 lead changes, each team pulling down 34 rebounds, and a game-high lead of just eight points, which made for a drastic difference from BU’s 72-59 win over Albany back on Jan. 15.
Despite—perhaps or thanks to—the game’s competitiveness, Greenberg could not pinpoint one reason why the team lost. Rather, it was a combination of several factors.
“I thought Mo tried to make too much happen with her dribble,” Greenberg said. “I thought Chantell was way too lackadaisical. Caroline and Kerry could have had better games, and of course Alex could have played better defensively in the end. And I could have certainly coached a lot better of a game.”
Another culprit of the Terriers’ woes could have been the weeklong layoff in between games. On Feb. 1, BU downed Maine 71-59, and then had to wait eight days to resume game action.
“Did the layoff hurt us?” Greenberg said. “Probably a little bit, but for us to be a championship team we’ve got to be better. Whether we have one day or 10 days, we’ve got to be better than we were tonight.”
Young echoed her coach’s words.
“Having a week off is a little scary,” Young said, “but that’s no excuse. We have to come out every game excited.”
Young added that despite an overall 10-1 conference record, the “one” does sting.
“It was a good run,” Young said. “Obviously, you never want to lose, so it’s not like we’re content with this loss, especially on our home court.”
Stewart agreed with Young’s sentiment, reiterating that it was not so much that the team lost, but where the team lost: the comfortable confines of Case Gymnasium.
“It was extremely disappointing tonight. This is our court and we take a lot of pride in winning on our floor,” said junior forward Caroline Stewart. “But tomorrow’s another day and we’ll start practice again and put this one behind us to focus on our next game.”
Now, the pre-season AE favorites will try to maintain their “one game at a time” mentality in search of their ultimate regular season goal: the number-one seed in the AE tournament in early March.
“We just have to take it day by day now. We can’t think about the wins that we have or the losses that we have, just keep working and go onto the next game,” Stewart said.
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